My sermons and reflections. Called to Ascension Lutheran Church in Shelby, NC, I am a first call pastor at this ELCA congregation. Posts before June 2014 are reflections on life during my theological education and internship (2008-2013).

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Ascension of our Lord

While portrayals of the birth
and crucifixion of Christ and predictions of end times garner more support at
the box office, the Book of Acts tells a different story. It is the story of
the life of the early church and disciples, and it is all about the in-between
times.

As one pastor says: “We are
an Easter people living in a Good Friday world.” The statement recognizes how
we live in a broken world where hope has been buried in a tomb. And yet, we know
the sure and constant hope of the resurrection, even when all visible evidence
argues for despair.

Upon the Ascension of our
Lord, forty days after the glorious Easter celebration of the
resurrection of Christ, we enter another in-between
time. It doesn’t cast the same somber pall as Easter Saturday. On this day,
Jesus leaves the disciples and, as we affirm in both the Apostles’ and Nicene
Creeds, “is seated at the right-hand of God” the Father in heaven.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus
took time to withdraw from his disciples, and spend time with the Father in
prayer and solitude.

But this time is different.

Since the fifth century, the
focus on the Ascension has been on Jesus’ departure. Ancient works of art show
him climbing a stairway to heaven; medieval paintings illustrate a group of
disciples, and sometimes angels, watching his disappearing feet. The impression one gets is that God has left us.

(pause)

But the Ascension does not revoke or break the
promise of the resurrection. Jesus is
not held somewhere between memory and hope, in some kind of cosmic suspended
animation. And Jesus is not seated on a golden throne somewhere in the fluffy
clouds above our heads. It looks different than the last forty days, but

God – Father -Son, and Holy Spirit – is still with
us!

His departure is an
ending, of his physical appearances and presence, but it is also a
beginning. At the Ascension, Jesus
promises his disciples that God is empowering us to be God’s people in
wholly new way.

Up until now, Jesus has been
with the disciples, teaching about the kingdom of heaven, and witnessing to
them how to forgive and love and draw people into relationship with our
merciful God. Jesus has been leading them every
step of the way. Following him was as easy as following his footprints in sand
because he was right there where they could see him.

Then, immediately before his
ascension, Jesus tells the disciples to wait, saying,

“You
are witnesses of these things. 49And
see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here … until you
have been clothed with power from on high.”

Now, the disciples are
being asked to learn how to lead;

to wait on God’s initiative
and make sense of where God is accompanying them;

to watch for God’s lead and follow, when the footsteps may not
be as visible and the path is obscured.

Waiting is hard work. It’s much easier to rush in and do what we think is
best, to create big and audacious programs, or to try to wrestle control and
make people do what we want.

In our instant society where
you can download a book in seconds, order movies on demand, and nearly anything
can be delivered to your doorstep for a premium, we have lost the art of waiting.

About a week ago, the story
of Noah was part of the daily lectionary – the readings assigned for the days
between Sundays that are in Word and
Season –and I noticed something
new about this story that, even though I didn’t grow up learning memory verses
in Bible drills, was familiar. You know the story, right?

God
tells Noah to build an ark and then he tells him on a specific day to bring his
wife and his sons and their wives and pairs of all the wild animals and
creeping things and winged creatures onto the boat with him.

And
then, it rains, and rains, and rains; for forty days, the flood continued, and
every living thing on the face of the ground and the birds of the air were
blotted out.

And
when the flood ends, Noah sends out a dove and it returns with an olive branch
and the next time he sends it out, it doesn’t return, indicating that all the
waters were dried up.

And
then God puts his bow in the clouds, and makes a covenant, or promise, with
Noah and humankind.

That’s the story we all know.
Except when you read Genesis 8 and 9 again, you hear a second story, an
unabridged version that makes the story much more demanding, as if living on a
boat for forty days with every blessed creature on earth isn’t enough!

Like the creation stories in the
first two chapters of Genesis, Noah’s story is told by two different writers,
and their stories are entwined in the text. In the longer version of the story,
Noah and his family have to wait.

It says that, after the flood
stops, “the waters gradually receded from the earth; at the end of one hundred
fifty days, the waters had abated; and in the seventh month…the ark
[reached land].” The waters continued to abate for three more months.
After TEN months, three HUNDRED days, the mountaintops began to reappear.

In 300 days,

a person can hike the
Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine;

a gardener can sow seeds,
plant, grow and harvest a bounty;

an infant can be conceived,
carried and born.

Contrary to what popular
culture and technology teaches us, waiting is not something to be
avoided.

It is hard though. Ask the high
school senior waiting on college admission decisions; the expectant parents and
grandparents eager with anticipation; or anyone waiting for a loved one to
return from a military deployment.